Nick Bednar

Nick Bednar

@nicholasbednar.bsky.social

McKnight Land-Grant Professor, Law and Political Science at U. of Minnesota. AdLaw, Admin. Capacity, and the Federal Workforce. Contributing Editor for Lawfare; Nonresident Fellow at Brookings. Signal: Nbednar.46 Opinions are my own; Not UMN.

21.4K followers1.1K following2.3K posts

Nick Bednar reposted

Chris Geidner
@chrisgeidner.bsky.social

NEW: As expected, on a 2-1 vote, the Ninth Circuit dismisses DOJ's appeal in the US v. California case over DOJ's claims relating to "likely noncitizen" voting. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Chris Geidner@chrisgeidner.bsky.social

NEW: In rare Sunday arguments, appeals court judges skeptical of DOJ’s California election lawsuit. The lawsuits in California and Alaska are expected to fail — but they also show how far A.G. Todd Blanche will go to advance Trump’s aims. Tonight, at Law Dork:

lawdork.comIn rare Sunday arguments, appeals court judges are skeptical of DOJ’s California election lawsuitThe lawsuits in California and Alaska are expected to fail — but they also show how far A.G. Todd Blanche will go to advance Trump’s aims. And, for paid subscribers: Closing my tabs.

Nick Bednar reposted

Roger Parloff
@rparloff.bsky.social

Govt's attempt to upend "long-settled case law" by invoking "stray language" from Slaughter and Trump v US is without merit and "would risk a return to the spoils system that Congress has sought to end since the 19th century."

Roger Parloff@rparloff.bsky.social

Judge Furman rules that Maureen Comey's firing violated separation of powers. Orders backpay. Govt's arguments violate 2 centuries of SCOTUS rulings & would "unsettle the equilibrium established by this Nation's constitutional system." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Nick Bednar
@nicholasbednar.bsky.social

Furman awards backpay and reinstatement. He seems inclined to dismiss the First Amendment claim as moot because it sought the same relief. Nevertheless, he asks Comey to file a memo by November 9th about why the claim shouldn't be dismissed.

Nick Bednar
@nicholasbednar.bsky.social

Court draws on the legislative history suggesting that Congress intended to protect attorneys with the Due Process Amendments of 1990 and DOJ practice of treating AUSAs as being subject to the CSRA.

Nick Bednar
@nicholasbednar.bsky.social

Court notes that five of Comey's claims turn on whether the removal was lawful: (1) separation of powers claim, (2) APA claim, (3) ultra vires claim, (4) procedural due process, and (5) property-interest.

Nick Bednar
@nicholasbednar.bsky.social

Central dispute: 28 USC 542(b) passed in 1966 says "each [AUSA] is subject to removal by the Attorney General." 5 USC 7513 passed in 1978 says employee can only be removed "for such cause as will promote the efficiency of the service." Court concludes that 5 USC 7513 controls.

Nick Bednar
@nicholasbednar.bsky.social

Summary: 1. Comey's removal violated the Civil Service Reform Act. CSRA is a limit on AG's removal authority. 2. Article II permits Congress to restrict removal of inferior officers. Slaughter does not apply. Comey entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

Nick Bednar reposted

Jake Grumbach
@jakemgrumbach.bsky.social

New working paper w/ @hannafolsz.bsky.social In 2025, Trump targeted US law firms for their political opposition Some firms resisted by suing Trump. Others folded by agreeing to support the administration w/ pro bono work Resisting firms took a short term financial hit but improved reputations

Nick Bednar reposted

Pavithra Suryanarayan
@pavisuri.bsky.social

Another day, another election, and another public service announcement that your area political scientist is having a tough one figuring out what the hell is going on.

Nick Bednar reposted

Lawrence Solum
@lsolum.bsky.social

Murphy & Watson on When Does the Government Follow the Law? Colleen Murphy (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and Bill Watson (University of Illinois College of Law) have posted…...

legaltheoryblog.comMurphy & Watson on When Does the Government Follow the Law?Colleen Murphy (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and Bill Watson (University of Illinois College of Law) have posted When Does the Government Follow the Law? on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The rule of law in the United States and in countries around the world is currently under stress. But diagnosing that stress and charting possible paths forward is hampered by an inadequate understanding of what the rule of law is and why it matters.

Nick Bednar reposted

Devin Judge-Lord
@judgelord.bsky.social

Spending $2 billion to pay companies to *not* build new cheap clean energy projects should have been a huge scandal. Looks like we paid far more for civil servants to *not* go to work. Breathtaking waste, fraud, abuse, and inefficiency. Also read and follow @nicholasbednar.bsky.social

lawfaremedia.orgThe Use and Abuse of Administrative LeaveUnderstanding a central tool in DOGE’s war against the federal workforce.
Kevin Bogardus@kevinbogardus.bsky.social

I wanted to know how much EPA spent on admin leave after 1000s were paid not to work, often for months So I filed a #FOIA —> EPA denied me —> I appealed —> I won And EPA spent almost $200M on leave Many never returned to work #FOIA4eva More here: subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2026...

Nick Bednar reposted

Jenn
@jennburrill.bsky.social

Minnesota prosecutor who charged ICE agent Christian Castro for lying about shooting Sosa-Celia has been fired Matthew Evans objected to DoJ stopping him from filing criminal civil rights violations "I objected in the strongest possible terms & fought it as hard as I could. It wasn't enough"

cbsnews.comFederal prosecutor fired after investigating ICE officer for civil rights offenses in Minnesota shooting, sources sayA federal prosecutor in Minnesota who was investigating an ICE officer for possible civil rights crimes has been fired, four sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.
Jenn@jennburrill.bsky.social

When an influencer called for Miami prosecutor Will Rosenzweig to be fired - he was She bragged: “Got this guy fired”, which is in his lawsuit “Justice for Americans ... should not be contingent on what someone in the Department of Justice sees in their social media feed" 🎁 link @nytimes.com

nytimes.comProsecutor Sues Justice Dept. Over Dismissal After Right-Wing Influencer’s Claim (Gift Article)Will Rosenzweig joins a growing list of former prosecutors and federal agents who have gone to court to contest the purge of law enforcement deemed disloyal.

Nick Bednar reposted

Rachel Porter
@rachelporter.bsky.social

Very happy to meet with anyone interested in our Quantitative Political Science line at APSA! If you're on the fence about applying, this is primarily a *substantive* line. If your research uses LLMs, networks, large datasets, causal inference, etc., you’re who we’re looking for!

Rachel Porter@rachelporter.bsky.social

📢 JOB ANNOUNCEMENT 📢 Our department is hiring an Assistant Professor of Quantitative Political Science. We seek a scholar in AP, CP, PE, or IR who applies frontier methods of statistics and data science to substantive questions in their area of expertise. apply.interfolio.com/189477

Nick Bednar reposted

Sara Hobolt
@sarahobolt.bsky.social

📢 LSE Political Theory job opening We’re looking for a political theorist to join us at @lsegovernment.bsky.social - it is an open rank search, so we welcome applications at Assistant, Associate or Full Professor level Reach out with questions & please share widely! jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/I/...

jobs.lse.ac.ukAssistant/Associate/Professor in Political TheoryAssistant/Associate/Professor in Political Theory, , <p>&nbsp;</p> <p style="text-align: center;">LSE is committed to building a diverse, equitable and truly inclusive university</p> <p style="margin:...

Nick Bednar reposted

Don Moynihan
@donmoyn.bsky.social

Replying to @donmoyn.bsky.social

At the abstract level it’s hard to talk about areas of overlap for governance reform. This is why organizing dialogues around specific challenges (eg civil service reform, safety net policy, tech in govt) would be better

Nick Bednar
@nicholasbednar.bsky.social

Updated on SSRN with new textual analysis about how AI revision changes student work product. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

papers.ssrn.comArtificial Intelligence and Human Legal Reasoning<div> Empirical evidence increasingly demonstrates that generative artificial intelligence has the capacity to improve the speed and quality of legal work, yet
Daniel Schwarcz@danielschwarcz.bsky.social

I’m delighted to share that the Northwestern University Law Review will publish Artificial Intelligence and Human Legal Reasoning, co-authored with @nicholasbednar.bsky.social, Allan Erbsen, and David Cleveland. 1/4

Nick Bednar reposted

Steve Vladeck
@stevevladeck.bsky.social

This was a really fun conversation with @klonick.bsky.social about my paper on the declining relationship between the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts and its mounting costs (a draft of which is available here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....). Thanks to Kate and Lawfare for hosting me!

Lawfare@lawfaremedia.org

On Lawfare Daily, @klonick.bsky.social sat down for a live discussion on Substack with @stevevladeck.bsky.social to discuss his forthcoming Harvard Law Review Foreword, “The Court Against the Courts,” which chronicles institutional attacks on the lower federal courts. youtu.be/VGJP_kO5av4

Nick Bednar reposted

Adam Bonin
@adambonin.bsky.social

The Washington Supreme Ct will extend diploma privilege as an option for all first-time test takers at last week's fiasco of a NextGen Bar rollout. (They can also take the test to have a transferable score.) If an applicant previously failed anywhere, free retake. www.courts.wa.gov/content/publ...

Nick Bednar
@nicholasbednar.bsky.social

You don't say? www.lawfaremedia.org/article/did-...

lawfaremedia.orgDid DOGE Take Credit for Spending Cuts Related to President Carter’s Death?Inaccuracies on DOGE’s website raise questions about DOGE’s activities and transparency.
The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com

Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service consistently overstated its savings, taking credit for lease cancellations initiated before the group existed, a government watchdog found. DOGE also claimed contracts were terminated that had not been, the report said.

washingtonpost.comElon Musk's DOGE made big errors in claims of government savings, GAO findsThe government watchdog found that billions of dollars in DOGE’s public tally could not be verified and that some claimed cuts never happened.